Wednesday, 1 June 2011

Unrequited Love: 4 Working Days

Don't even ask.

In one sense - the sense I'm going to completely ignore - things have gone a long way backwards since my update last week. Viewed another way, we're a long way forward down a road that's turned out to be quite a bit longer than it looked on the map.

It was ever thus...

In summary, 270 KTA is facing in the same direction as it was, only now it's missing both front wheels and hubs while Sheppards scratch their heads by night...

Here's a summary of last week's frustrations:(in order of appearance)

- The aforementioned battery charger did its job beautifully on one of the two batteries, but the other turned out to be suffering with not one, not two, but three dead cells. "That's quite uncommon" said the man at the Plymouth Battery Centre, when I eventually got around to buying a new one yesterday for £107;

- In between times, I borrowed a set of batteries from a friend with the aim of at least getting 270 KTA turned round to allow me to work on the offside front brakes. These batteries also turned out to be duff, and so I had to borrow a third set from another vehicle. (Sometime during the struggle, I managed to burn through both my trousers and pants with battery acid, but that's a story for lights out...);

- Having finally got 270 KTA started, I set about turning her round only to find we had NO brakes whatsoever - just a limp pedal. The brake fluid in the master cylinder had somehow escaped, or rather leaked somewhere (more on that to follow), and we were left pumping thin air around a hydraulic system;

- Deciding to save that problem for later and press on with work on the offside front brakes in-situ, I discovered that not only was the top wheel cylinder completely seized (this is the bit that actually pushes the brake shoes onto the drum in order to make the coach stop), it had probably been so for the past 20 years.

Enter David Sheppard Senior - the Patron Saint of Bristol SU engineers and founder member of the SU Owners' Samaritan Hotline - who was supposedly travelling down to Devon to help me to bleed the brakes.

After nearly three hours spent coaxing the front and back pistons out, it was clear the wheel cylinders themselves were completely knackered; and since it's best practice not to change things on one side without doing the other...

Hence we're slightly further back, yet quite a lot further forward, than we were.

We've found new cylinders (£££) and rubber kits (actually they're old ones that have never been used, and so they require careful stripping and rebuilding), and we're currently getting those ready to fit.

The Patron Saint has also worked magic on the fuel pump, which you'll recall was causing industrial quantities of black smoke to billow across Devon whenever we reached a hill. It turns out the cold-start mechanism, which is used to give extra fuel on the first start of the day, was permanently jammed in the 'on' position... Helpful!

We've also sorted a problem with the handbrake linkage which was causing the lever to spring back up a notch or two when released. Not only were the rods incorrectly adjusted (and therefore bending themselves into bananas), but one of the links was completely seized. It would have taken only a drop of grease over the last thirty years to prevent it, but instead we had to strip it all down and start again.

So, about June 18th...

Tempting though it is to stop the clock on our little countdown, I'm not ready to admit defeat on that just yet. This could still be done. But more important is knowing that we've done a thorough job and put right the ills of thirty years of engineering neglect.

Without that philosophy you'll never get an old vehicle to repay any of the time and love you invest in restoring it.

And one day, 270 KTA will love me back.

The b***ard thing.

With eternal thanks, and love, to the 'Patron Saint' who is e'en as we speak hard at work machining down a special locking-bolt for one of the hub nuts, 200 miles up the M5/M4...

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This blog is an ongoing chronicle of the adventures I share with my preserved 1962 Bristol SUL4A coach.

Here you'll find tales aplenty of the joy and strife associated with keeping alive a 55 year old vehicle.

Our adventures have been many and varied over the past seven years. The blog’s archive contains rich and colourful stories of success and failure that have typified life with 270 KTA so far; stories of man and machine in perfect harmony, briefly but sometimes brutally interrupted by the odd discordant note.

This blog now has a 'brother' in BDV252C.co.uk, which follows the long-term restoration of my 1965 Bristol SUL bus. To balance the tales of woe and elation in each story, I recommend you follow the two blogs in equal measure!

David Sheppard, 2018

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About 270 KTA

270 KTA (420) is a 1962 Bristol SUL4A coach, one of 36 such coaches built for Western National and Southern National for use in the West of England. They were predominantly for local tours but also provided relief on express services to London and the North during busy periods.

Bristol's SU-type was a narrow, lightweight chassis designed specifically for use in rural areas. As well as the South West, SU coaches found their way to Wales, with bus-bodied counterparts in Yorkshire, the Isle of Wight and parts of the Home Counties.

420 has a 33-seat body built by Eastern Coachworks of Lowestoft and a 4-cylinder Albion EN250H diesel engine, mounted horizontally underfloor and coupled to a David Brown 5-speed gearbox.

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A BRIEF HISTORY

420 worked from Western National's Kingsbridge depot when new, where it was to be pride of the fleet for six years. With the decline in local coach tours it moved to Taunton where, along with most other SU coaches, alterations were made to enable use on local bus routes.

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Moving to Trowbridge depot in 1968, it was something of a oddity in Wiltshire and as such was very well photographed during its stay. When the Trowbridge operation was transferred away from Western National, 420 was returned to Taunton, narrowly missing transfer to the Bristol Omnibus fleet. (Or did it?)

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420 was renumbered 1220 in June 1971 and, following a spell at Bridgwater depot, was transferred to the Devon General fleet. Accordingly, it received poppy red and white livery - the only SUL coach to be so treated. It was also the only one of its batch to be fully downgraded to bus configuration, with the removal of headrests and the addition of extra seats.

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Withdrawn from Weymouth depot (still red), '1220' later worked as a school bus in Sussex, before returning to the West to join the fleet of Willis, Bodmin. It was donated to the Western National Preservation Group in 1995, and remained with them for several years, although its poor mechanical state meant it was little used.

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Purchased by me in December 2009, it was returned to the road in 2011 after major mechanical attention. A rolling programme of restoration has continued while allowing 420 to be used at events and enjoyed by others. By fluke or fate, it now lives just a few miles away from its original home in Kingsbridge and is part of a family fleet of five preserved Bristol vehicles.

270 KTA's Owner and Scribe

David Sheppard lives in the South West of England. He has been involved in bus and coach preservation for more than 25 years, having helped his father to restore their first bus at the age of seven.

David is a trustee and director of the Thames Valley & Great Western Omnibus Trust and a director of NARTM, the National Association of Road Transport Museums, which represents the heritage transport movement to Government departments and agencies, regulators and funding bodies.

A broadcaster by trade, he hosts his own regional show on BBC radio stations across the south‐western quarter of the UK and Channel Islands.